(KTRS) – On the heels of protests over the racial conditions on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus, t…
Advertisement
Kratzer is also an assistant professor at Mizzou’s prestigious journalism school, which runs the paper.
In the written statement, Professor Mitchell S. McKinney said the department “supports the First Amendment as a fundamental right and guiding principle underlying all that we do as an academic community”. It was not clear whether Click taught journalism students. Such journalistic tools would inhibit free conversation, they were told.
“Forget a law”, one protester cries at him. And student protestors and faculty at the University of Missouri fancy themselves virile despots in the chilling tradition of the mustachioed Uncle Joe. While many applaud the student actions, a few are questioning whether the climate of sensitivity on college campuses has evolved into a climate of over-sensitivity, where students are considered fragile and unable to cope with opinions that make them even slightly uncomfortable.
Ultimately, there are lessons that both sides need to learn. You can eat there. “You can sleep there”, Kratzer said. And report there too.
Click was captured Monday calling for “muscle” to remove a journalist who was inside a “safe space” photographing demonstrators who had succeeded in ousting the university president.
In an email, Mr. Tai said that the protesters backed up media members about 100 feet from the tents. “Saying you have no right to, is false”.
“Yesterday, I allowed my emotions to get the best of me while trying to protect a few of our students”, Basler wrote.
At one point in the video, Tai is confronted by Janna Basler, the director of Greek life and leadership on campus, who told the photographer to “back off”. “Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?”
And this is where Assistant Professor Melissa Click, who is excruciatingly lily white by the way, comes into the picture… quite literally. She studies television and pop culture and presumably along the way acquired a few understanding of the press. “She was intelligent and thoughtful and apologetic for numerous things that had happened”. “I’m told it will be at least for simple assault, municipal, but it could be quite a lot more”. “It all feels so raw”.
Schierbecker told The Post that Click said she might be amenable. “Let’s approach this not as full of angst and anger, but as calm journalists”.
The professor did hold a “courtesy appointment” at the journalism school, which she resigned from this week at the same time journalism faculty were meeting to discuss the appointment. “His dignity also speak well to the journalism program at MU”, Click said.
I am just about unyielding in my belief in Click’s freedom of inquiry and expression. Those actions contradict everything the journalism school professes to stand for. Loftin will resign January 1 and take a new position promoting research efforts at the university.
The Department of Communication also issued its own statement Tuesday, condemning intimidation of journalists but declining to comment on Click’s status.
Advertisement
The announcement of Melissa Click’s resignation came hours after she issued a public apology for her actions a day earlier. But I’m open to the argument. After all, that’s implied by free speech too. Their desire to control the narrative – and the extent to which that’s possible today, with social media at their disposal – is interesting, and I’d love to read a piece that compares their relationship to the press with that of other recent protest movements, from Occupy to the Tea Party to Black Lives Matter. Tai said that he had accepted her apology.
